Southend United's Paul Sturrock wary of Port Vale's scoring prowess

PORT Vale come to Roots Hall tomorrow having already scored 35 goals in the league this season, which is unbelievable.

Tom Pope is scoring goals for fun and we have to come up with a way to try and stop him.

A baseball bat may be the only way to do it but Vale are a very dangerous team to play at home where we have been too open at times in the past.

They are a very attack minded side and they have height in their team as well.

It is therefore important that our defence knows what is coming as there will be crosses from both sides.

But I am delighted for Micky Adams at the moment.

He has had a torrid time in charge with what has happened at that football club but he’s a top man.

I hope he stays a top man too and keeps on doing well but only after Saturday.

We’ve done well in our last couple of games, scoring six goals in two matches and we want to keep that going.

I think having a settled side has helped with that, especially in the midfield.

Marc Laird has shown his quality in there and it’s great to have Tamika Mkandawire with us as well now.

His arrival meant I decided to leave Alex Woodyard out for the game at Bristol Rovers and that wasn’t an easy decision to make.

Alex has pushed himself further forward in my plans with how well he’s done in the last few matches but we need to get him games.

With no reserve side that’s going to be hard and, if our current injury situation stays the same, then I think we will look to try and get him out on loan if a component Conference club came in for him.

While on the subject of loanees, we’ve also decided that Jonson Clarke-Harris will be heading back to Peterborough United when his time with us ends after the weekend.

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Jonson has all the attributes you need to be a good player but he needs experience and to play games and that’s something we unfortunately cannot over him at the moment.

I’m hoping to finally get a settled side together and it was very pleasing to see Gavin Tomlin get his first league goal of the season during the week.

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I don’t think people have been appreciate enough of what Gavin brings to the team and I certainly think Britt Assombalonga’s good scoring record has partly been done to Gav’s work.

He’s not going to be prolific for us but he can chip in with eight or nine goals and will contribute to the team in several other ways as well.

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